# Divorcing Google **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 16, 2021, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408 "2021-06-16T16:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/1 "2021-06-16T16:27:09Z")
This is the end. It’s been a magical 20-something-year ride, but it’s time. I just can’t trust you anymore. I probably never should have. I was young and naive. We both were. But as we’ve grown up together, you’ve come to ask too much, much more than I want to give. I didn’t even notice at first, so enamored I was with your ability to seamlessly connect my entire internet life, but it turns out you’ve been taking advantage of my trust and you simply don’t give a damn about my privacy, _our_ privacy, and I have essentially no recourse. The best I can do is leave you, as much as that’s possible. I’m afraid I’ve found another. Another_s_, in fact. I am replacing your Drive, your Gmail, and your Search with Dropbox, Tutanota, and DuckDuckGo. You are so large I’m afraid I cannot avoid you entirely, but I will use YouTube only with contempt. Goodbye, Google. I know I will never fully be rid of you, but we just can’t be together anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/2 "2021-06-16T18:49:25Z")
I picked Google up on the rebound and filled my house with it! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/3 "2021-06-16T21:52:39Z")
Okay. But care to elaborate on what they did that led you to this conclusion? Clearly you were okay with them before. Plus, care to say why the replacements are better? I tried quitting Gmail once, but every other online mail service utterly sucked. They all have bad spam detection and lacked features I use, e.g. having all my unread messages on top or having so much storage. And that was on top of having to change my email address everywhere. No other search engine seems to give results as good as Google, either. Google Drive is nothing special, but I don’t really use it much. Still, it has much more storage than Dropbox on its free tier. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/4 "2021-06-16T22:00:45Z")
Yes, Google collects a lot of data on me. And what does it use that data for? To serve me targeted ads, and to help other companies serve me targeted ads. That’s a win-win: Targeted ads are a good thing both for me and for the advertisers (certainly, compared to the untargeted ads we get otherwise). ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/5 "2021-06-16T22:50:50Z")
You can’t quit Google. An engineer tried to block all google addresses, and it killed his internet. Google has become a single point of failure for the internet. if Google went under, a whole lot of the internet would go with it. That’s a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/6 "2021-06-16T23:49:08Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > No other search engine seems to give results as good as Google, either. I’ve noticed that, too. Sometimes Bing comes close, but it just isn’t quite the same. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/7 "2021-06-17T00:13:32Z")
What most people said above. For search and email, nothing beats Google. And I care not one bit what info they have on me. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You can’t quit Google. An engineer tried to block all google addresses, and it killed his internet. Can you link to this, please? I would love to read that ---
**Author:** ![blabbermeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@blabbermeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blabbermeister)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/8 "2021-06-17T01:43:33Z")
Google it. Just kidding ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/9 "2021-06-17T02:04:55Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > You can’t quit Google. An engineer tried to block all google addresses, and it killed his internet. > > Can you link to this, please? I would love to read that It won’t “kill your internet” — you don’t have to use Google DNS. But it will kill your use of Google Calendar, Google Maps (including Uber, etc.), Google Fonts (on random websites), Youtube, and so on. If you care about any of those sites, and even if you don’t but you need to use a site that took the easy way out and relies on free or paid Google services, those won’t work, at least not on the front end. Similarly, the site you are reading now uses a lot of Amazon. Try blocking it and you may get unexpectedly broken results. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/10 "2021-06-17T02:18:34Z")
In my job I literally need Google search. I have tried others. They are all miserable, pale, awful, pathetic efforts at a competent search engine. It’s really weird how good Google is at this and how bad everyone else is. I am not suggesting it is easy but huge companies have had a go and no one comes close yet. Also, Googledocs. Only thing that easily allows me to collaborate on a single document simultaneously (read that word again) with others. I also use that daily with others collaborating on the same document. Find me alternatives as good and I’ll go. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/11 "2021-06-17T02:58:23Z")
You could, in principle at least, have engineers at your company install Apache Solr (or whatever) to index all your documents, and Etherpad (or whatever) for collaborative editing. You are choosing— and if your documents are not sensitive I cannot necessarily blame you— the convenience of offloading all that onto Google. Of course there are non-Google web-based services as well- duckduckgo, Bing, YaCy, free online Etherpads/spreadsheets and so on with varying degrees of functionality and reliability. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/12 "2021-06-17T03:00:24Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > Can you link to this, please? I would love to read that > **[I Cut Google Out Of My Life. It Screwed Up Everything](https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it-screwed-up-everything-1830565500)** > > Week 3: Google ‘killed the internet’ is a little strong but it did make it almost unusable. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/13 "2021-06-17T03:12:45Z")
I’ve used both Google docs and MS Teams/SharePoint (for Office products) and my preference is for the latter. Edits appear in real time and multiple people can work on the document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) at once. Won’t claim that MS does it better than Google and I’d even argue things are _easier_ in Google docs. Just didn’t have the features I needed. ---
**Author:** ![oldoaktree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ccd318/32.png) [@oldoaktree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldoaktree)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/14 "2021-06-17T03:14:42Z")
i’m not a conspiracy theorist but i do go into google privacy settings to things off. i read an article about google tracking your phone, and sure enough when i looked into it, it knew everywhere i had ever been. including the route i took there. just gives me the willies. but you can turn it off ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/15 "2021-06-17T04:00:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yes, Google collects a lot of data on me. And what does it use that data for? To serve me targeted ads, and to help other companies serve me targeted ads. That’s a win-win: Targeted ads are a good thing both for me and for the advertisers (certainly, compared to the untargeted ads we get otherwise). Why do you think targeted ads are a _good_ thing for you? Advertising is designed to get you to part with your money to acquire some good or service. I _prefer_ seeing non-targeted ads. Ads for women’s products, or baby/kid products or senior products _always_ fail to get me to spend any money since I’m not a woman, don’t have any little kids & am somewhere between the ages of Papmers & Grampers. Most of my intertubez browsing is done both signed out & in private mode, in a browser other than the one that I _do_ sign into stuff just so I don’t get targeted nearly as well. Separately, what’s the catch with DuckDuckGo? They say they _don’t_ collect your data, I don’t see much in the way of advertising on their page, & yet, they’re spending $ on an advertising campaign. How are they making money? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/16 "2021-06-17T04:29:58Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > I _prefer_ seeing non-targeted ads. If you like spam, then you like spam. However, if you do not care for spam, is non-targeted spam really any better than targeted spam? > [@Spiderman](#): > > Separately, what’s the catch with DuckDuckGo? They say they _don’t_ collect your data, I don’t see much in the way of advertising on their page, & yet, they’re spending $ on an advertising campaign. How are they making money? I do not know their current policy, but they have not been completely clean from adverts and affiliate codes as far as I know, even though they do not collect or trade in your personal information. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/17 "2021-06-17T05:55:01Z")
Massively simpler and cheaper on free Google. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/18 "2021-06-17T05:57:17Z")
> [@Tabco](#): > > Edits appear in real time and multiple people can work on the document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) at once. Edits appear in real time on Googledocs too. And Googledocs is free. And Googledocs is stupidly easy to use which also means inexpensive. No need for support staff. Also it is free (read that part again). I will say MS-Excel is waaaaaaay better than the Googledoc version for complex spreadsheets. Excel is an amazingly powerful program. Simple spreadsheets Googledocs is ok but it falls apart fast. (That said I have actually gotten Google Sheets (their version of Excel) to do some pretty cool things that my company loves me for…I was definitely pushing the possibilities though). ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/19 "2021-06-17T07:10:57Z")
> [@blabbermeister](#): > > Google it. Just kidding There’s one in every bunch :shakesfist: > [@DPRK](#): > > Similarly, the site you are reading now uses a lot of Amazon. Try blocking it and you may get unexpectedly broken results Ok, this may be one of those things where I am too stupid to understand, but I use AdBlock and NoScript and neither shows Amazon at all, blocked or allowed. I never see an ad or a blank space like some users talk about. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > ‘killed the internet’ is a little strong but it did make it almost unusable. Thanks, **Sam** , great article. And that’s from 2019, imagine where Google is looking now. You just never think of the day to day stuff you use, you just use it. A whole bunch of that stuff would have never even occurred to me, like Uber or AirBNB. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408/20 "2021-06-17T07:47:10Z")
> [@mordecaiB](#): > > Ok, this may be one of those things where I am too stupid to understand, but I use AdBlock and NoScript and neither shows Amazon at all, blocked or allowed. I never see an ad or a blank space like some users talk about. Same for me. I would like to avoid Google, but they are everywhere. And, like Amazon, it is frightening how good they are at what they do. It seems easier to avoid Facebook and Twitter, and even there I am not sure to what extent I manage. I amazes (sic!) me how many otherwise intelligent people are completely oblivious to the danger those internet giants pose for democracy, privacy, justice and decency. I often hear them argue that those companies may be bad, but they use them in an intelligent way, so no danger. Which is so wrong it makes me despair. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divorcing-google/944408.md?page=2)